56th UNSC Side Event - Measuring equality and non-discrimination: connecting the dots across international initiatives

2025 UNSC Side-Event Hosted by Praia Group on Governance Statistics, UNDP, OECD WISE Centre, OHCHR

See more here: UNSC56-Measuring-equality-17Feb2025.pdf

Context

All around the world, people report experiencing discrimination in their lives and these feelings are coupled with a sense of grievance and erode trust in public institutions (OECD 2024). The evidence underscores the importance and timeliness of discussions on measuring discrimination.

Key discussions

The event took stock of the progress accomplished in producing statistics on equality and anti-discrimination and highlighted existing information gaps. It explored ongoing international initiatives in thefield that aim to harmonize measurement methodologies, and discussed capacity-building and co-creation solutions that national statistical offices can undertake with governments, researchers, civil society, community-based organizations and specific target groups.

Moderated by Ms. Diana Castillo-Trejo, Director General of the Statistical Institute of Belize

Speaker

• Dr. Mariana Kotzeva, Director General of Eurostat
• Mr. Geir Axelsen, Director General of Statistics Norway
• Dr. Romina Boarini, Director, OECD WISE Centre
• Mr. Nicolas Fasel, Chief Statistician, UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR)

Resources

• Handbook on Governance Statistics, Praia Group on Governance Statistics (2020)
• Overview of Eurostat’s work on Equality and Non-Discrimination Statistics: Provides an overview of the policy issues, the various dimensions of equality (grounds of discrimination) and the statistical domains and indicators, and discusses some data collection challenges.
• The State and Effects of Discrimination in the European Union, OECD (2024): This paper uses new survey data to examine discrimination against people from racialised communities, LGBTIQ+ people, persons with disability and religious minorities. It explores the role played by discrimination in driving well-being gaps between at-risk groups and the majority of the population, overcoming challenges in measuring discrimination, which stem from a lack of cross-country comparable data.
• Norway Living Condition Surveys (2005/2006 and 2016), describing the coverage of discrimination-related questions in the surveys.
• A Human Rights Based Approach to Data – Leaving No One Behind in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Guidance Note to Data Collection and Disaggregation, OHCHR (2018).

Recording is available here: